Astronaut Bruce McCandless died Friday at the age of 80. Most news reports recognize that in 1984 he became the first to perform an untethered spacewalk, floating freely with the aid of a jetpack some 300 feet from the space shuttle Challenger.

But the reports are missing so much about McCandless, one of the subjects of my 2005 book: “Apollo Moon Missions: The Unsung Heroes.”

In 1990, on shuttle mission STS-31, McCandless helped deploy the Hubble space telescope, which first allowed us to study the universe without having to peer through the atmosphere.

“But he is best known to the general public for his voice,” I wrote in the book. “McCandless was the capsule communicator in mission control who talked astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin through history’s first moonwalk (on July 20, 1969). "OK, Neil, we can see you coming down the ladder now.' "

Cap com duties usually went to astronauts. While in space, astronauts wanted to communicate with one of their peers.

The job was stressful and critical, but Apollo 11 brought a new level of tension. McCandless knew that this was, hopefully, going to be a one-take shot of incredible history. More than 700 million people would be watching on television as Armstrong and Aldrin made bootprints in dirt billions of years old.

Numerous times during training, McCandless asked Armstrong if he would have something memorable to say as he descended the ladder and made human’s first step on the lunar surface. Armstrong would usually reply: “I’ll probably just say something like, ‘Boy, it sure is dusty up here … there’s a rock.”

Said McCandless during our interviews: “It became a point of contention between Neil and me. I felt like I needed to know. He didn’t see it that way. I had decided to say as little as possible during the first portion of the (moonwalk). “

Astronaut Bruce McCandless, who died Friday at age 80, helped deploy the Hubble space telescope in 1990.(Photo: Courtesy of NASA)

McCandless didn’t want his voice trampling over historic prose — and it didn’t. He was silent once Armstrong reached the Lunar Module’s footpad, took that first step and said to everyone back on Earth: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

A native of Boston, McCandless was selected in NASA's 1966 astronaut class,known as the “19 Originals.” Some of them flew to the moon. But because budget cuts shortened the Apollo program, McCandless never got the chance.

Still, McCandless earned his place in space history. He was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2005.